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What are defective verbs in English?
What does defective mean in grammar?
Do defective verbs change tense?
What is the negative form of May?
In English grammar, defective verb is a traditional term for a verb that doesn't exhibit all the typical forms of a conventional verb. English modal verbs ( can, could, may, might, must, ought, shall, should, will, and would) are defective in that they lack distinctive third-person singular and nonfinite forms.
4 days ago · Defective verb. In linguistics, a defective verb is a verb that either lacks a conjugated form or entails incomplete conjugation, and thus cannot be conjugated for certain grammatical tenses, aspects, persons, genders, or moods that the majority of verbs or a "normal" or regular verb in a particular language can be conjugated for [citation ...
May comes first in the verb phrase (after the subject and before another verb): It may be possible for him to get home tonight. May can’t be used with another modal verb: This may hurt you. Not: This may could hurt you. or This could may hurt you.
In grammar, “defective” describes words that do not follow all the rules of the class of words to which they belong. Defective verbs in English are verbs which do not have all the usual verb forms. These verbs cannot be used in some of the ways that normal verbs can. Native English speakers do not normally learn about defective verbs.
Defective Verbs. A Defective Verb is one that is not used in all the Moods and Tenses as, must, ought and quoth. Auxiliary Verbs = Helping Verbs. An Auxiliary Verb is one which helps to form the Moods and Tenses of other verbs. The auxiliary verbs are - shall, may, can, must, be, do, have and will. Remarks on The Auxiliary Verbs. 1.
This defective modal helping verb exists only in the present and preterit tenses. It is followed by a main verb in the bare infinitive, or by [ have + past participle]. Both the present and the preterit may be used in combination with [ have + past participle] to express a guess or a possibility about a past action (e.g., "she may/might have ...
Level: intermediate. We use may have and might have to make guesses about the past: I haven't received your letter. It may have got lost in the post. It's ten o'clock. They might have arrived by now. We also use might: as the past tense of requests with may: He asked if he might borrow the car. They wanted to know if they might come later.
